Sure, and no worries. I’m not out at Nathan all that often though, these days, because I’m dividing my time between Griffith, ACU, and consultancy and business projects. But when I’m next around, a beer at the club sounds great!

Good luck for Greenslopes, but matching good luck for Gary too, as he’s a mate of mine also – we used to share an office together when he was out of Parliament for a term and working as a politics/public policy academic.

Up until that date they have voted against each other on “the Vegetation Management and Other Legislation Amendment Bill second reading debate,the Sugar Industry Reform Bill, the Marine Parks Bill, the Education Legislation Amendment Bill, the Tobacco and Other Smoking Products Amendment Bill, the Racing Amendment Bill and the Marine parks Great Barrier Reef coast zoning plan.”

Since then we have seen breakouts with the Queensland Liberals supporting the Howard Governments Industrial Relations plan while the Nationals were trying to get Senator Barnaby Joyce to cross the floor to oppose Howard’s Workchoices Legislation.

In the end the Liberals won the day against the Nats as Federally they invariably do and the same as they did when the Nationals were huffing and puffing about how they were never going to stop the full sale of Telstra.

It seems that at present ‘the coalition of the unwilling’ is at variance with each other and the voting public still sees disunity as death as far as I can see.

Imagine the Liberals trying to tell the people of South East Queensland how good their environmental credentals are when the Shadow portfolio is held by a National who up until now has made decisions based on pastoral and Agribusiness interests.

Or,Imagine the National Party trying to explain their plan for looking after Seniors when the Liberal Member for Caloundra has been given the job of being their Shadow spokesman during the last term of Parliament. Seniors on the Sunshine Coast were shocked when he was promoted to Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party recently.

The Greens are running 75 candidates, three more than 2004. Yay us. I should probably say I’m the candidate for Greenslopes again. So watch out Gary Fenlon.

BTW I think I owe you a small apology for that previous bitch. My snark (and curiosity) is directed at “fact-checking” within Crikey and elsewhere in the media. I got no idea how it works, but it seems to work quite badly in the bits Crikey publishes that I know something about. I don’t have much snark directed against the writers. Except, of course, for Christian Kerr. Buy you a beer at the club sometime?

d

So this was written before nominations closed, and FF had said in their public statements they would have 40 candidates.

Obviously they didn’t do so well.

As I said at Pollbludger, one other advantage that the early election brings Beattie is catching the minor parties unprepared.

How did the Greens do?

Albert, Burdekin, Cunningham, Darling Downs, Everton, Ferny Grove, Glass House, Gregory, Gympie, Hervey Bay, Ipswich West, Keppel, Lockyer, Logan, Mansfield, Mount Gravatt, Mount Isa, Mudgeeraba, Nanango, Noosa, Sandgate, Tablelands, Toowoomba North, Toowoomba South, Warrego & Woodridge

Herself, she has had a gutful of politics.

Maybe so. But she did run at the last Senate election after she came out of jail, and she was in Sydney the other night to listen to Mark Steyn. She also asked him a question.

It seems a long way to go to listen to and interact with Steyn, particularly if she has had a ‘gutful’ of politics. It’s easy money and she always had an eye for an easy quid.

But you could be right.

Although I think the whole “stopping public discourse” thing about Whitlam/Keating is overstated (I wrote something on my blog about the dire Helen Darville and her attempts to make excuses for her behaviour based on the Keating era’s political correctness).

There’s also nothing quite as amusing as hearing people like Laws, Alan Jones blah blah going on about their freedom of speech being inhibited (I believe Loewenstein is quite good at this).

Hansonism emerged I think more from the particular economic circumstances of the time (eg decline in manufacturing sector). The reason it lasted so long was due to the fuel that was added to it by its opponents. Populism is essentially negative, so it needs something to oppose it to thrive.

Were she (or a clone) to stand now, it is unlikely that they would attract 20% of the statewide vote (or even 10% of the nationwide vote).

Herself, she has had a gutful of politics. It would be amazing if she stood again. She isn’t as tough as the career politicians John Howard, Kim Beazley & co, who tough it out election after election, wearing all sorts of humiliation, abuse, slander, remaining focused on their future

However the financial reasons you note are likely to cause the ALP, Liberal, National, Calithumpian etc to run again, they are political parties focused on votes & election payments far more than they are on helping the country.

One Nation was a spontaneous movement, not an organised political entity. It rose in a flash, and dissapated immediately.